


Ashes, Ashes (we all fall down)

by Mohini



Series: Ghosts [21]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Foster Family, Childhood Trauma, Drug Use, Found Family, Gen, Heroin, emeto
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:14:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22136128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mohini/pseuds/Mohini
Summary: When the ghosts of holidays past have nothing good to say, dulling the noise is a thing she has to do.
Series: Ghosts [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1100523
Kudos: 14





	Ashes, Ashes (we all fall down)

Flames. Red and warm like the glow of a candle in celebration – except that the only thing being celebrated tonight are the dead.

Burn it down. All of it. Make ashes of the memories. Maybe then it will stop hurting. Only she knows it won’t. Can’t.

So the flame keeps flickering and the liquid in the bent spoon beckons. If she can’t set fire to the world, she can at least let the fire burn in her veins. Maybe this time it will scour out the parts of her that are always so very wrong.

Familiar tug of metal on meat as the tender skin of her ankle gives way to the beveled tip of the needle, Red blooms in the barrel of the syringe. Searing heat. The sudden rush of sour bile in her throat. She leans over the toilet, the meager holdings of a shrunken belly splashing into the water. Heat rising and receding, just in time to swallow her again. Her stomach contracts with nothing more to give. Coughing, an arm around her waist as she spits, gags, breathes. Waiting. It will pass. It’s been a while, but the memory holds true.

Nausea gives way to hazy numbing, her entire being ever so slightly fading in and out. Awareness flickering. Comfortable. Quiet. Still.

A tiny clatter of syringe pinging off the floor as it falls from loosening fingers. Eyelids fluttering. Dropping hard now. Dark. Cold. Safe.

The metallic click of the lock being sprung, hinges squeaking ever so slightly as the door swings in, bouncing off her feet. That should hurt, but it doesn’t. It’s distant, barely registers as an event, with the fog swirling alongside the flames in her blood muting everything.

A voice shouting, and then there are hands, warm and strong, gripping her by the arms and pulling her into a broad chest. Her head flops against his shoulder, but it’s safe there and she breathes slow and deep.

“How much?”

She shrugs. She doesn’t know. Doesn’t care. Enough.

“Great, very encouraging there, Tash,” he tells her. She didn’t mean to speak. She just wanted to feel nothing for a little while.

“Mmhmm,” he murmurs back, and she bites her lips to keep the words inside.

Gravity shifts around her, and she’s not on the floor or in his lap anymore. The familiar scent of Steve’s cologne tells her who has her now. The soft rumble of his voice mutters something about nightmare and hellion and dammit Tasha. That should be her name sometimes. So many ways to disappoint. She’s so good at all of them.

Soft, fluffy covers make a nest for her, and she knows they’re in her room. Steve and James like a utilitarian bed. All military precision in the making and never any wrinkles in the sheets. She sleeps on a squished together pallet of blankets atop her mattress. It provides cushion for sore hips, and safety for the need to burrow away from the monsters in her dreams. Tonight, it gives her a place to cling when Steve puts her down.

James isn’t far behind. The crinkle of a plastic bag gives away that he’s arrived armed with the bathroom trash bin. She wants to explain to him that she only ever barfs right after she shoots up. That’s why she was in the bathroom to begin with after all. But she thinks better of it. He probably doesn’t need to know that. He definitely doesn’t need to know that she does.

She’s still high, that cuddly fog wrapping itself around her every synapse. It makes her next move perfectly logical. She holds her arms up and squeezes her hands into fists. The near universal gesture for gimme. James doesn’t argue with her. Just shifts her to the side enough to fit in the bed with her. She’s wrapped around him as fast as she can manage, fingers tangling in his shirt and chilled nose buried in the soft skin of his neck.

“How long you been going this time?” he asks her.

There’s no accusation. No disappointment. Not even the little bit of judgement that he surely has every right to have.

“Fucking holidays,” she gives in answer.

“So a one off?”

“Mmmm,” she purrs.

It’s not. Not really. She keeps supplies under the mattress. She keeps powder in the box at the back of her closet. But as an escape route it’s a rare one. Only on the nights when the voices of long ago won’t stop chattering in her head. She made it through the actual holiday. Their little found family creating space of their own in all the noise of the past. Plates of takeaway, simple gifts under a tree, movies watched squashed together on the couch. It was not unpleasant.

Tonight, with silly appetizers for dinner and questionable champagne and dumb celebrities she cannot name on broadcast television, tonight hit her in exactly the wrong way. Christmas had been almost charming in its simplicity. This was going through the motions. She doesn’t do well with that. Never has. And Jamie’s the only person she’s ever been even a little bit ready to admit that to. She doesn’t know why she couldn’t, why she left the boys on the couch and headed for her room, and the little hall bath.

All she can grasp at is that it was just too heavy. Hence making it heavier. And yeah, it means she was sick and had to be rescued but as saviors go, Jamie and Steve aren’t the worst. She snuffles, her eyes damp and leaking. Not even sure why the tears have come, except that heroin steals her filters. Always has.

“I’ve got you,” James tells her, kissing the top of her head and running a hand up and down her back. She closes her eyes and drifts, listening to him chat with Steve over her head about plans for the morning. Steve slips into the bed with them, and she’s cuddled up between her boys, home and safe and high enough to feel good for a little while.

“Got you back,” she whispers into his neck as she starts to nod out, and he laughs low in his throat, a sound she will forever associate with home.


End file.
